It is known to use electrically conducting lead frames in an electronic component for routing electrical currents out of a semiconductor component, EP 2 524 394 A2. In particular, it is possible to also transport fairly high current intensities through such lead frames, which is advantageous for use in power electronics.
If it is intended to measure the intensity of the current flowing through the semiconductor component, the current can be passed through a low-value resistor (shunt) and the voltage drop across the resistor can be measured, DE 10 2016 003 988 A1. From the voltage drop it is possible to deduce the current intensity and therefore the energy consumption.
In order to minimize the dissipation or power loss during the current measurement, shunts with a very low resistance can be used, for example, on the order of 100 μOhm. When such low resistance values are used, care must be taken to ensure that the contact resistances in connecting the shunts are kept to a minimum. Otherwise, the contact resistances can quickly become of the same order of magnitude as the measurement resistor, thereby causing the current measurement to be corrupted.
Surface mounted components have the disadvantage that the resulting power loss is discharged into the environment by convection. The heat transferred to the surrounding air is low, because air is a very poor conductor of heat and the surface area of the component is small. Due to the poor heat dissipation the component heats up strongly at high currents. Due to the change in the material resistance caused by the temperature increase, the measuring accuracy deteriorates when such shunts are used.